Key Takeaways
• SwagCycle, founded by Ben Grossman of Grossman Marketing Group (asi/215205), reported its largest year to date in 2025, facilitating nearly $9 million in charitable donations.
• Since its founding in 2019, it’s facilitated more than $12.6 million in charitable giving and diverted more than 3.3 million branded items from landfills since 2019.
2025 was the biggest year yet for SwagCycle, a landfill diversion solution for excess branded merch started by Ben Grossman, co-president of Woburn, MA-based Grossman Marketing Group (asi/215205) and a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of the most influential people in promo.
In a recently released impact report, SwagCycle noted that it facilitated nearly $9 million in charitable donations last year, bringing its cumulative impact to more than $12.6 million in charitable donations. SwagCycle has also helped to divert more than 3.3 million items from landfills since it was founded in 2019.
“The numbers tell a story of SwagCycle becoming the branded merchandise industry’s most sophisticated resource for responsible product lifecycle management,” Grossman noted in the report. Grossman, a member of ASI’s Promo for the Planet advisory board, was also the Counselor 2022 Bess Cohn Humanitarian of the Year.
Of particular significance was SwagCycle’s work for California wildlife relief. In partnership with Delivering Good and several leading distributors and suppliers, SwagCycle facilitated nearly $500,000 in donations to support wildlife victims. SwagCycle also worked with Counselor Top 40 supplier S&S Activewear (asi/84358) on a massive donation following its acquisition of alphabroder and subsequent distribution center consolidation.
In addition to facilitating donations, SwagCycle made strides with recycling. Last year, it worked with a global professional services firm undergoing a rebrand, with multiple truckloads of branded merchandise that required processing. Working with a network of specialized recycling partners, SwagCycle was able to use near infrared scanning technology to determine its precise material composition, sorting it into the appropriate recycling stream. Eligible items underwent fiber-to-fiber recycling, getting broken down either chemically or mechanically into their original fibers to be respun into new yarns and garments.
Grossman said he’s energized for what’s to come in 2026 for SwagCycle and the promo industry as a whole.
“When we launched SwagCycle in late 2019, our goal was to transform the branded merchandise industry by helping companies think about product stewardship from brainstorming to rebranding,” he explained in the report. “Six years later, that transformation is underway. We’ve proven that obsolete swag doesn’t have to end up in landfills, that charitable impact can scale dramatically, and that security concerns around branded merchandise require sophisticated solutions.”
Read the full report on SwagCycle’s website.
